Sorry Mrs Judgeypants - look away! Its confessions of a childminder

I've been a cm for a couple of years and have had some fantastic advice from this forum (thanks esp to Mr Anchovy and NannyNick), but I was looking at some posts the other day about tv watching and thinking that in my early days I was so stressed out every day and I'm sure it wasn't helped by the "mrs judgepants" posters on here.So, in the spirit of christmas I confess -I sometimes let mindees watch a bit of TV, not that much and usually related to something else we're doing (although I'm not sure I'll get away with many more pirate activities so that they can all watch Jake)I sometimes leave children asleep in the buggy outside - wrapped up against the weather in my secure garden and I'm always within sightSometimes I don't have my day planned and have to wing it.Sometimes snack isn't hugely healthy - usually because we've made fairy cakes (hides head in shame at the time we made hedgehog cakes and all six mindees were covered in chocolate butter icing)Despite all this, my mindees love me, the parents all rate me as brilliant and the Care Insp gave me an excellent - so there mrs judgepants!Go on cm - get those confessions off your chest, you'll feel so much better for it.

I'm not worried now, but it can be a very isolated job and when you go on here looking for advice and are beaten down with childcare professionals should -never have tv on, only feed children seeds and home organically grown fruit and veg and have no furniture in their playrooms in case a child sustains an injury - you start to think you're a rubbish cm even if you've raised children of your own who have managed to survive despite your "rubbish" childcare practices!I took a mindee to a cafe the other day so that I could feed baby mindee and let older one choose a packet of crisps for snack!

I think my childminder was like this - and I didnt care at all lol. Like someone has said, it's all about the home -from-home experience as far as I was concerned, and if that sometimes meant an afternoon on the sofa watching a dvd with cm and other mindees, that was fine by me He also got to do visits to 'Grandma' - totally part of the cm's family and activities. She was brilliant and Im quite sad he had to start school!

Oh dear, better get on to that. I suggest you risk assess a) possibility of drowning in small bucket b) possibility of suds allergy (better do skin tests!) c) possibility of tennis elbow or housemaid's knee from all the scrubbing and polishing and don't forget d) possibility of blinding (from sun reflected off superdooper shiny car)

I'm a nanny, not a childminder. My massive confession is that one year a parent asked me to make 20 (!) xmas cards with their toddler. She did about 8 happily enough over the course of a week but then point blank refused to do anymore. So i made the remainders in her style .Mum never knew. I do still feel a bit ashamed years later, but she was insistent on that number.

What, you go to the toilet without taking the children with you....................HOW.............................................. considering all mine are 6 & over, honestly, I have one that would follow me in there as well............................

My confession - I am ridiculously crap at paperwork. I'm just so disorganised. Once contracts/permission slips are filled in, I do very little else in terms of paperwork.

Confession 2 - when I picked up mindee (3yrs) this morning, I told him I needed to hoover and his little face lit up like Christmas had come 4 days early . So, armed with the baby Dyson (mindee) and the fully-grown version (me) we hoovered the whole of downstairs. Then, he told me to do the washing and could he switch the machine on...so we did!

I could do with him coming tomorrow because the washing is still in the machine and I've got loads of jobs to do.

we watch a bit of tv most days, I take kids to bank, post office and round to visit my grandparents. I do the bare minimum of paperwork. the kids make cakes and lick the bowl. they jump in muddy puddles. I have loads of confessions! Today I got loads of lovely presents and cards with lovely things written in them. I love the kids I mind they have loads of fun and so do I! and I have stopped going to childminder drop ins-very judgey!

I took two of my mindees to visit an elderly neighbour who lost her husband last week to see how she was and if she needed any shopping etc. We were only there for 15 minutes and the little ones really cheered her up. I know there would be lots of people on here horrified that I took them into someone else's house but I think it was a nice thing to do - so there!